Anyway, she should see what clues she could gather first. Otherwise, everything was just wild speculation.
Thinking this, Bai Ci opened her Rain's Message panel.
【Rain's Message NPC: Lawrence Colin
Appearance: Is human
Identity: Duke of the Valerian Empire
Relationship with Player: Under a “friendly request,” the king arranged an engagement between the two.
Skill Levels: Physicality 8, Spirit 7, Agility 7
Special Skills: None
Life Status: Healthy, no signs of plague infection】
After reading all the entries, Bai Ci fell into a brief silence.
First of all, the appearance column read “Is human.” Honestly, aside from the matchmaking agency instance, Bai Ci had never seen the panel use this style of evaluation on anyone.
Excellent. This heavily ruled out the possibility of this duke being a good person.
It also largely ruled out the possibility of the duke being some kind of final boss. What kind of boss would be so utterly devoid of style that they were ultimately only confirmed to have the basic attributes of a human being?
Even that trainmaster with the incredibly long name, who was positioned as a minor boss, had their appearance properly respected.
Of course, there was also a microscopic possibility that this duke's appearance was simply so plain and ordinary that he could only be described as human, with no other defining features.
However, the quotation marks around “friendly request” in the relationship section already confirmed the former.
The other party had an ulterior motive for this engagement.
As for the last item in the life status column, that was the primary reason for Bai Ci's silence.
She had to admit, this kind of life status looked a bit familiar. She had seen it once before.
As everyone knew, once the system emphasized the absence of something, it meant that thing was bound to happen. The last person whose status had been emphasized like this was Hugo, who eventually died of the plague.
Bai Ci sighed silently, her heart filled with helplessness.
Could this plague thing please stop being so utterly omnipresent?
Just a moment ago, she was thinking that she couldn't handle political intrigue and wanted some anomalous events to spice things up, but she didn't mean this.
When she was just a common mail carrier's fiancée, the plague had affected an entire town.
Now that she had become the princess of the Valerian Empire—and the crown princess who was about to inherit the entire nation—if it didn't affect the entire kingdom, it would almost be doing a disservice to her status.
Well, the “spice” had arrived, and it was the most perilous, most difficult kind to resolve.
Misfortune stems from a nation's destiny; disaster blankets tens of millions.
Suppressing the gravity in her heart, Bai Ci opened her inventory to look at her most reliable trump card and instance detector.
Gluttony was currently in an unusable state.
Did this mean there were no high-intensity anomalous powers in this world?
That meant the church, which in all probability existed and worshipped some unknown god, was not very powerful.
Still, given that there were no purely man-made disasters in Anomalous Infection instances, there would always be some degree of anomalous power involved.
Thus, Bai Ci didn't bother entertaining the idea that this might be a completely ordinary instance world without any anomalous power.
The probability was simply too small—smaller than the sun exploding tomorrow.
Therefore, Bai Ci guessed that the focus of this instance was highly likely to be the plague, rather than a secular struggle between the royal family, the powerful nobles, and the church.
Referencing the structure of the Withered Wood Post Office, the origin of the plague was probably anomalous, while most of the environment remained at a normal, ordinary level.
Thinking of it this way, it seemed to make sense.
No wonder Lawrence's attributes on the Rain's Message panel were so utterly mediocre, even though he was supposed to represent one of the three major factions.
Having figured out the most likely core tone of the current instance, Bai Ci actually calmed down.
Next, she needed to find a reason to meet the two parties mentioned on the king's note, and then find a way to pin down the situation with the plague.
The benefit of having a high status was that she could naturally make high-level deployments, provided she first dealt with the disobedient, troublesome obstacles.
The downside was that when standing so high, it was difficult to detect tiny, hidden dangers in the first place.
Before Bai Ci even had a chance to think about unlocking the king's note in her archives, an orderly knock came from outside the chamber.
“Your Highness, I am Mia. Forgive me for disturbing your rest.”
A crisp, gentle female voice came through the chamber door, her tone respectful.
“Come in.”
Bai Ci reined in her emotions, massaged her face to control her expression, and then called her in with a flat tone.
The door was gently pushed open, and Mia walked in with her head bowed and her body slightly bent.
“Your Highness, Duke Lawrence Colin is waiting in the garden. He wishes to meet with you to discuss the details of the engagement ceremony.”
“The Duke said that this engagement was settled in a hurry, which has wronged Your Highness.”
“He does not wish to be careless or perfunctory about the ceremony, so he specially made time to consult with Your Highness. He hopes the wedding itself can match Your Highness's preferences and bring you some joy.”
Oh, it seemed she didn't even need to think about it. Someone had already delivered himself right to her doorstep.
“I see. Lead the way.”
Bai Ci stood up calmly. Her expression made it look as though she didn't particularly care for this marriage, but was trying her best to suppress her discontent due to the current circumstances.
“Your Highness, please wait.”
Mia quickly stepped forward to block Bai Ci, her eyes carefully sweeping over her attire. She advised earnestly, “The colors and cut of your current outfit are rather plain and cold. It is not suitable for receiving guests. You should change into a more dignified and proper gown.”
Seeing that Bai Ci didn't seem to want to go through the trouble at all, Mia took a step back and offered a compromise.
“At least allow me to restyle your hair, Your Highness?”
Bai Ci had no intention of making things difficult for the little maid.
After all, the maid's attitude had been quite good so far. Why torment an honest worker?
Since the man was already here, it wasn't like he could run away. So she nodded and agreed to Mia's suggestion to fix her hair.
While the maid was styling her hair, the Eye she had quietly attached to the head maid also transmitted new sounds.
Initially, it was the sound of writing in a quiet environment. Bai Ci guessed that as the head maid, she was reviewing or hand-writing documents.
Then, the sound of approaching footsteps suddenly broke the silence. Someone entered and spoke to the head maid in a low voice.
“Madame Mary, that lord has arrived. He wishes to see you.”
The scratching of the pen stopped, followed by the faint scraping of a chair being pulled back, and then footsteps.
After walking for a while, the footsteps faded from clear to muffled. At some point, the background noise turned into the sound of the wind.
It seemed they had gone outside.
“My lord, this Princess Severnia who was just brought back is different from the rumors.”
“I originally thought she was a timid, cowardly girl who didn't know the rules. But after interacting with and testing her today, I found that she has thorns. At the slightest offense, she aggressively pushes back, refusing to bend. She's completely impervious to both soft and hard approaches.”
“I haven't figured out her background yet, but she is definitely not someone easy to deal with.”
Rate on N.U.
